Inspired!

Suhaib Mohammed: How To Grow Your Freelance Writing Income

You dig deep into the freelance writing business. You learn the art of writing, and decide to start the venture. You give up on your TV shows, and buy into the tradition of Hemingway, waking up late at night or in the wee hours of the morning to type, push, and build compelling words to convey, convince, or convert your readers.

You fill your brain with ideas, pack your RSS feed with a lot of content, and organize yourself to read, research, and turbocharge your skills. You even upgrade your computer, and invest in the latest word processor to stay up to the date in your industry.

What could be the problem? What attracts clients to your freelance writing services, generates more money, and increases your revenue?

It is marketing. This is the one crucial thing you can do to increase your freelance writing income.

The question is how can you do it right?

There is no doubt that social media marketing has changed the traditional methods of advertising. Rather than slow cold calling and knocking on doors to pitch your new venture, the Internet has introduced newer, cheaper marketing methods through which you can reach your target audience – the very people who will buy your products and services.

From Facebook (which has an estimated user base of over a billion) to Twitter (with 218 million active users), you can study your target market, see which social network they hang out on, and use it to attract them.

Alongside social networking, you can use other strategies to expand your freelance writing business.

Steps and Strategies to Double Your Freelance Writing Income
Apart from using social sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, you can use the following approaches to create an upsurge in your freelancing revenue:

1. Set up a blog
A blog is a powerful tool that any online business owner can use to get leads and increase their sales. Because a blog is associated with social networking tools, as a freelance writer you can use it to:

Publish your posts on the go

Market your services freely

Engage with your audience effectively

Setting up a blog has never been easier. You can use a free Blogger account (yourname.blogspot.com) or a self-hosted WordPress installation (yourname.com). The latter is the better option as you can use your name or choose a niche to build a perfect platform for your business.

Once you set it up, your blog will serve as your company storefront, where your client and customers can contact you. It will also increase your web presence and present you as the professional you are. And clients looking for a skilled content creator will know where to find you, and where to refer others as well.

This is exactly what you need, isn’t it? More clients, more money.

2. Guest blog on big blogs
This is the one thing you can do that will shoot your income higher – beyond what you ever imagined. Guest blogging is simply the practice of writing blog posts on popular blogs for the purpose of reaching a wider audience. Though you can guest blog on smaller blogs with a smaller audience to attract backlinks, the bigger the audience you can reach out to, the better.

When you’re starting as a fresh freelance writer with a brand new blog, you may not have a large following. That’s normal: the Internet is a crowded marketplace with a lot of things going on simultaneously. Think of it like the city of Lagos, and ask yourself: “How can you make the passers-by in the City notice you?”

Tough, right?

But it‘s doable. You can propose a meeting with them through their government officials (an authority they know, like, and trust) at their favorite hangouts. That’s the idea behind guest blogging: you suggest, through a top blogger, to meet with a large audience at their favorite site, and communicate with them using your content.

Once you pass on your message to a larger audience, you will be exposed to a lot of potential clients and businesses who might need your style of writing, voice, or tone. Thus, you can get hired by big companies and get higher pay as well.

3. Put up a “hire me page” on your blog
When I first launched my blog, I didn’t think of including a “hire me” page… I thought that clients would simply read my “about” page and hire me from there.
I was wrong! Clients don’t just figure out that you’re a freelancer for hire and hire you on the spot; they need you to tell them what you do and what you offer. So tell them what you do in your “hire me” page.

To present yourself as a professional, you need to design your “hire me” page with care. Make it look classy. Offer your services clearly. Arrange your words concisely. Be clear about your rate. And make the page simple for clients to navigate through.

Your income is determined by the approach you use in your business. If you’re not seeing a surge in your freelance writing revenue, maybe you’re not marketing your business the way you should – constantly and consistently. Always remind people about what you do. You’ll get more gigs and more income.

18 Comments
on Suhaib Mohammed: How To Grow Your Freelance Writing Income

ThelmaJanuary 3, 2014 at 1:50 pm

Thanks for the tips. I just visited your blog and I’m
already excited about learning new things. So BN let me begin with
you guys, you would have me as a guest blogger? I guarantee you it
would be great fun. Feel free to check out my blog;http://www.thelmathinks.blogspot.com

i totally learnt a lot from this piece.. One thing tho.. I do not wanna own a blog, i just wanna be a part of building brands, ones such as BN.. A chance to learn and grow. Can i be featured as a guest writer as well, following the advice given to Thelma?